Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Are we better off now than we were 8 years ago?

In
2009, just three weeks into his presidency, President Obama traveled to
Elkhart, Indiana. In his first speech as president, he assured a community
reeling from the economic recession that he would do all he could to recover
and rebuild an economy that is stronger than ever before—for Elkhart and
communities just like it across the country.

Seven
and a half years later, President Obama returned to the city to recount the
progress we’ve made since that day. And we’ve made quite a bit of
progress.

Over
the past six years, our businesses have created more than 14 million
jobs. Our manufacturing sector is seeing the first sustained
growth since the 1990s.

The
unemployment rate has been cut in half—same for the oil we buy from
foreign countries. And we’ve doubled our production of clean energy.

For
the first time ever, more than 90 percent of the country has health
insurance.

However,
if you ask Republicans in Congress, you’ll get an entirely different—and
entirely false—story. It goes something like this (as told by President Obama):

“America’s
working class, families like yours, have been victimized by a big, bloated
federal government run by a bunch of left-wing elitists like me. The government
is taking your hard-earned tax dollars and giving them to freeloaders and
welfare cheats. It’s strangling business with endless regulations. And it’s letting
immigrants and foreigners steal whatever jobs Obamacare hasn’t killed yet.”

The
truth is, by almost every economic measure, we are better off than we were when
President Obama took office.

So
the President decided to do a little myth-busting in Elkhart, taking on the
four tallest tales that Republicans in Congress like to tell
and laying out the real story behind our economic progress.

Myth
1: Government Spending

“No, government
spending isn’t what’s squeezing the middle class.”

When
it comes to government spending, here are the facts: We spend less on domestic
priorities outside of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid than we did under
President Ronal Reagan.

Under
President Obama, we’ve cut the deficit by almost 75 percent. Today, fewer
families are on welfare than in the 1990s, and funding has been frozen for two
decades.

And while almost all opponents of the Affordable Care Act
like to claim the historic law is killing jobs and exploding spending, their
claim is demonstrably false. Businesses have added jobs every month since the
President signed health care reform into law in March of 2010.

The
ACA is actually leading to less spending for the average family as well. The
average family’s premium cost $2,600 less than it would have if premiums had
kept growing at an earlier rate.

Myth
#2: Overregulation

“I’ve issued
fewer executive orders than any two-term President since Ulysses S.
Grant—that’s a long time ago.”

It’s
true.

It’s a fact that the President has issued fewer regulations
than President George W. Bush.

And the ones he has issued benefit our
economy—from protecting our air and water to protecting families from getting
cheated when they buy a house or invest their savings.

Myth
#3: Trade

“The truth is,
the benefits of trade are usually widely spread —it’s one of the reasons why
you can buy that big, flat-screen TV for a couple hundred bucks, and why the
cost of a lot of basic necessities have gone down.”

Now, it is also true that past trade deals haven’t lived up
to the hype—especially when other countries don’t play by fair rules.

By keeping U.S. goods out of their markets, they unfairly
subsidize their businesses to undercut our own. The worst violators don’t even
have trade deals with us at all.

That’s why the President has brought more trade cases
against other countries for cheating than any other president.

As
the president said, “Trade has helped our country a lot more than it’s hurt
us.” For example, companies that export pay workers higher wages than companies
that don’t. And under the President’s trade agreement—the Trans-Pacific
Partnership—we will eliminate over 18,000 taxes various countries put on
Made-In-America products. With the TPP, we can rewrite the rules of trade
to benefit America’s middle class.

Because
if we don’t, competitors who don’t share our values, like China, will step in
to fill that void.

Myth
#4: Immigration

“Right now, the
number of people trying to cross our border illegally is near its lowest level
in 40 years.”

As
the President noted, not only do immigrants start about 30% of all new
businesses in the U.S., they actually pay more in taxes than they receive in
services.

And
no, immigrants are not the main reason wages haven’t gone up for middle-class
families.

That’s
a reflection of the decisions made by companies in which the top CEOs
are getting paid more than 300 times the income of the average worker.

So
deporting 11 million immigrants would not only cost taxpayers billions of
dollars and tear families apart, it would do nothing to seriously help the
middle class.

What
our immigration system needs is comprehensive reform, the kind that President
Obama has been pushing Congress to pass.

That
way, families who have been here for decades can come out of the shadows, go
through background checks, and pay their taxes.

Thought for the day

“Charlottesville is a great place that’s been very badly hurt over the last couple of days. I own, actually, one of the largest wineries in the United States. It is in Charlottesville.”

Donald Trump, responding to a question whether he would go to Charlottesville to offer support and comfort as so many Presidents have done in the past.

Quick fact check: Donald Trump does not own the winery; his idiot son Eric does under the name Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC. And at 36,000 cases annual production, the winery is not even the largest winery in Virginia, never mind the United States.

Information and Feedback

If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this.